Cubs Given Meeting With Shohei Otani

The Cubs would neither confirm nor deny on Sunday night whether they made the cut to the next stage of the process for the player some call the "Babe Ruth of Japan". I can't speak for them.

The 23-year-old Ohtani, a star pitcher and hitter who must sign with a major league team by December 22, has begun informing finalists of their meetings, which could run from this Tuesday to Friday. According to reports, a smaller market also interested Ohtani.

Any team that signs Ohtani must pay a $20 million posting fee to the Nippon Ham Fighters.

With only three Japanese players now signed to major league contracts (Masahiro Tanaka - Yankees, Kenta Maeda - Dodgers, Junichi Tazawa - Marlins) in addition to four free agents and one minor-league contract (Ichiro Suzuki, Nori Aoki, Yu Darvish, Koji Uhera and Hisashi Iwakuma - Mariners), it will be interesting to see if Ohtani actually steers clear of his fellow compatriots.

The Red Sox had only $462,000 in bonus pool money left to offer Ohtani, an global amateur free agent.

The largest deal he could sign is with the Texas Rangers for $3,535,000, followed by the Yankees ($3.5 million), Minnesota ($3.07 million), Pittsburgh ($2,266,750), Seattle ($1,557,500), Miami ($1.49 million) and the Los Angeles Angels ($1,315,000).

Passan reported Saturday that Ohtani had begun to schedule meetings with teams for this week.

Shohei Ohtani will not sign with the Mets, much to the surprise of, well, no one really.

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